Posts filed under 'Michael Madigan'
February 18th, 2008
A great pastime at the Capitol is speculating on the objectives and motives of House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago. Madigan seldom speaks in public and he generally is the last of state leaders to show his cards.
When he does show them, he tends to stake out a contrarian position. By positioning himself opposite other interests, he creates leverage to accomplish his goals — whatever they may be.
This spring session, Madigan was the first to show a card when he spread word last week that no major initiative will clear the House, the chamber that he controls, unless it contains language effectively pre-empting Gov. Rod Blagojevich from attaching rules elaborating on its thrust.
It’s uncanny for Madigan to announce such a radical position before the governor has a chance to set forth his own strategy Wednesday in his State of the State/budget address. Then again, Blagojevich and Madigan are great political adversaries. Together with Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a third Chicago Democrat allied with Blagojevich, the two last year faced off in a battle last so fierce that session literally dragged from the spring straight into this year.
But to truly understand the extraordinary nature of Madigan’s pre-emptive strike, you must consider the actual substance of his plan. By requiring all major bills to include language prohibiting the governor or his agencies from attaching administrative rules, the strategy could potentially shut down the legislative process.
In other words, Madigan has kicked off the session with a strategy that may do nothing but disrupt and delay the legislative process.
If Jones continues to side with Blagojevich through this session, he is unlikely to adopt Madigan’s strategy in the Senate. If the Senate rejects the strategy, and Madigan refuses to budge, it will be impossible for the two chambers to agree on legislation. And even if Jones does capitulate, and both the Senate and House do agree on legislation including the no-rules language, the governor could simply veto the language and send each bill back to lawmakers.
Lawmakers would then need to decide whether to override the governor. But I’m getting way ahead of myself here.
The bottom line is that Madigan does not often bluff. If he does bluff, he is not one to quickly go back on it.
Blagojevich and Jones, for their part, don’t tend to quickly swallow Madigan’s wishes.
UPDATE 1
Rep. Chuck Jefferson. D-Rockford, supports Madigan’s new strategy. Jefferson is a member of Madigan’s leadership team, so this is not surprising.
Jefferson echoed the speaker’s position, articulated last week by House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, that the governor directly assaulted the Legislature when he declared that the body’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, which reviews the governor’s administrative rules, lacks the power to reject his rules.
“I think it’s a good idea if in fact the governor is going to continue to try and pull the political maneuvers to undercut what JCAR is in place to do,” Jefferson said. “I think it’s to the governor’s advantage at this point, but he doesn’t seem to think so.”
UPDATE 2
Rockford GOP Sen. Dave Syverson also supports Madigan’s strategy, at least the concept, he said.
Syverson said state agencies have misinterpreted his bills when they write the rules, but he could not think of any examples. He said he is then forced to pass another bill to clarify the first legislation.
“I agree with the Speaker to the extent that we need to put more in there in regards to the major issues because the governor has taken more leeway to expand definitions … taking it way beyond what the intent was and we need to rein that in,” Syverson said.
“The House version may go too far but the what’s currently in place does not go far enough. There may be some room for compromise, which we hope we can do.”
UPDATE 3
In line with the House Republican party line, Rep. Dave Winters, R-Shirland, disagrees with the House Democrats’ plan. He said rule-writing needs to be done by people with the expertise in that bill, such as those at the state agencies.
“I think the administrative rules should be written by the agencies that are to administer them,” Winters said, “not by a bunch of legislators who are not bureaucrats.”
February 14th, 2008
House Speaker Michael Madigan’s plan to pre-empt Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s renegade rule-making sent House lawmakers into a partisan frenzy on Thursday, a brawl that boded ill for a constructive, or even civil, spring legislative session.
Republicans threw a fit on the House floor over Madigan’s plan to include in most legislation considered by the chamber this spring language that would prohibit Blagojevich or his agencies from attaching administrative rules to those bills once they become law.
The Republicans said it’s past time for the House Democrats to learn to get along with the governor of their own party.
Yes, this all sounds arcane. But it’s significant for two reasons:
1) As a political matter, Madigan’s new strategy is a clear indication that his bitter feud with Blagojevich, a fellow Chicago Democrat, will continue into its second year. The prospect is both titillating (for us political junkies, anyway) and exhausting.
2) As a practical and legal matter, Madigan’s new strategy will make the already cumbersome and dynamic process of lawmaking downright insane. Again, fun to watch. But not so fun if you have an legislative agenda in Springfield and you actually hope to advance it.
Here is a copy of the language Madigan would like to see inserted into each bill. From this provision, you get the idea:
Notwithstanding any other rulemaking authority that may exist, neither the Governor nor any agency or agency head under the jurisdiction of the Governor has any authority to make or promulgate rules to implement or enforce the provisions of this amendatory Act of the 95th General Assembly. If, however, the Governor believes that rules are necessary to implement or enforce the provisions of this amendatory Act of the 95th General Assembly, the Governor may suggest rules to the General Assembly by filing them with the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate and by requesting that the General Assembly authorize such rulemaking by law, enact those suggested rules into law, or take any other appropriate action in the General Assembly’s discretion.
Madigan’s new strategy could radically change the legislative process in Springfield. The AP has more background.
Writing and enforcing rules is a fundamental function of the executive branch in state government. Simply put, it’s how the governor and his agencies interpret and execute state law. But Blagojevich drew Madigan’s ire when he used an “emergency” administrative rule to implement part of his plan for universal health care.
The governor’s move was highly unusual, to say the least. Rules generally are not used to implement major spending initiatives which the Legislature has not approved. Moreover, after a special committee of lawmakers rejected the governor’s so-called “emergency,” the governor said he’d decided that the committee’s decisions were merely advisory and not binding.
House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, said Thursday that the governor’s decision to sidestep the bipartisan oversight committee forced Madigan’s new strategy of attempting to pre-empt the governor rule-making authority. She called the governor’s actions “a direct challenge to the authority, to the prerogative of the Legislature.”
Currie said it is too risky to have faith that state agencies, which answer to the governor, will properly interpret the Legislature’s will in crafting its rules. Filling legislation with rule-like language, she said, is a way to ensure that the Legislature’s intent is truly reflected.
“Maybe (the governor) can be clear about what we do need, and we can put in the muscle so that we can tell the agency exactly what we mean,” she said.
The fight on Thursday stemmed from a raucous committee meeting the day before. A committee I was observing turned upside down when news of the new amendment emerged and Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, began shouting at committee chairwoman, Rep. Karen May, D-Highland Park.
The meeting stalled for about 10 minutes as young staffers talked on cell phones and conferred with May, the committee’s chairwoman. Then May, following the orders she was given, announced the committee would not vote on any bills until next week.
Black, who was prepared to testify for one of the bills on the committee’s agenda, erupted as he began shouting at May and the committee staff, believing the announcement was disrespectful.
On Thursday, House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Oswego asked what it would really mean to take the governor’s rulemaking authority away.
“We will be bogged down in rules that (this special committee) has historically done for many, many years to the point that nothing gets passed and the people of the state of Illinois will not have their issues addressed in this session,” he predicted.
Cross said the people should not suffer because the House Democrats and the governor can’t get along.
February 13th, 2008
The feud between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan all but consumed state government last year, dragging out consideration of major initiatives from the state budget to a bailout for mass transit systems.
If action on Wednesday was any indication, when Madigan opened a new front in the political war, posturing and gridlock will continue well into this year too.
Madigan on Wednesday spread word to House committee chairs that certain bills will not advance unless they include a provision effectively pre-empting the governor’s authority to craft rules around those bills once they become law.
It was a direct assault on the governor, who in November used an “emergency” rule to sidestep the Legislature and unilaterally implement a phase of his plan for universal health care. The governor first tried to maneuver his plan through the Legislature — the conventional route for major spending initiatives — but lawmakers rejected it.
A special committee of lawmakers, who under state law have the power to review the governor’s administrative rules, rejected that “emergency” rule. The governor responded that he believed the committee’s role is merely advisory and that it did not have the power to reject his rule.
A suburban attorney filed a lawsuit challenging the governor’s decision to ignore the committee’s decision, and a court is reviewing the matter. The legal controversy is not new. Former GOP Gov. Jim Thompson argued in 1980 that the committee’s power to reject a governor’s rules is unconstitutional.
Madigan’s new strategy apparently is intended to kill the governor’s rule-making authority altogether, or at least when it comes to certain bills, by requiring such bills to cover all the details that the governor might otherwise cover in the course of an administrative rule.
A rule sought by the governor cannot conflict with the law it is linked to. If the Legislature addresses every conceivable detail in the actual bill, there would be nothing left for the governor to address with a rule.
The governor’s rule-making authority would be effectively neutralized.
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said all “appropriate” bills must now include an amendment requiring lawmakers to include details that have been traditionally left for the purview of the governor’s rules.
“Our interest is to help (the administration) implement their policies, and so bills that would require rules, we will amend them so that’s prohibited,” he told me. “It will spell everything out in the legislation.”
He added, “The administration wishes those to all be in the law, and that’s what these amendments will require the agencies to do.”
But will Madigan succeed in implementing his new strategy, thereby prompting wholesale change in how Illinois laws are made, or will he succeed only in aggravating the governor?
It’s not clear. Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a Chicago Democrat like Blagojevich and Madigan, sided with the governor during last year’s protracted battle of wills. If Jones continues to watch Blagojevich’s back this year, it’s unlikely the Senate will sign off on bills stuffed with all the additional language Madigan intends to stuff them with.
If Jones balks at Madigan’s strategy and the speaker refuses to budge, there will be more gridlock at the Capitol.
The development came the same day lawmakers returned to Springfield after a month-long break. Committee hearings were thrown into flux as legislators tried to figure out what this meant to bills already drafted and ready for a vote.
In Illinois, laws are built on three levels. The state Constitution is the foundation and basic framework. Statutes approved by the Legislature speak to the details left out of the Constitution. And rules implemented by the governor speak to the details left out of statutes. Through rules, the governor’s agencies implement law.
Madigan’s strategy would effectively morph certain bills to cover the nuance typically covered in rules. This, in effect, would make bills much, much longer. And, amid gridlock on top of gridlock, the lawmaking process would become even more convoluted.
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